Scout.com National Recruiting Class Rankings

Dave Telep, Scout.com

11/10/2004

In political terms, the early signing period is nothing more than an exit poll. It's great to look at and fun to speculate about, but it's not the best indicator of who wins basketball games next season.

November 10 marks the first day college prospects can get out their lucky pens, open the mailbox and signs those pesky national letters of intent. While the letter of intent is a binding document, the NBA Draft trumps its authority.

In recent years, big time recruiting classes that signed in November have fallen apart by April due to the sway of the big bucks from the The League. Regardless, the early signing period is an accurate way to assess which programs did the best in terms of talent acquisition.

For some kids like Wake Forest's Kevin Swinton who committed in what seems like years ago, signing day is a formality, a foregone conclusion. For others like Korvotney Barber who reached his decision two days ago, the day is a welcomed relief for Auburn fans.

Here at Scout.com we've gone ahead and projected a winner in this whole deal. Mike Krzyzewski's Duke Blue Devils narrowly edged out Kansas – whom we project to have added three McDonald's All-Americans – for the best class in the land.

You know us here at Scout.com, we like to analyze everything so we've taken recruiting class rankings and gone one step further. In doing our research, we've found that the SEC landed the most Top 10 players, the Big 12 the most Top 25 and the ACC simply did the best overall with an amazing 19 of our Top 100 prospects.

Check up on how your favorite league did by taking a look at this chart which is a Breakdown of Conferences That Signed Top 100 Players this fall. Keep in mind that we have each league listed with its current members and expansion – especially in the Big East – was not taken into account for the purposes of this survey.

But, we're not done yet. Ever wonder who the top player is coming into your favorite league? Well, we've got you covered. Scout.com projected next year's top incoming newcomer in every league in America next year. Here's a Conference Breakdown: Top Incoming Recruit In Each League that you can stew on for your signing day pleasure!

Now remember, we'll reconvene next spring and recount the votes in order to determine who sits a top the class rankings for one more term!